Better works on screen

However, the 50-odd films were not all blockbusters in the traditional sense.

For instance, there is Paths of the Soul, based on Tibetan villagers' pilgrimage to a sacred mountain. It set a record for art-house films at the box office.

A documentary, Twenty Two, based on the Nanjing Massacre, an atrocity committed by Japanese forces from 1937-38, was also warmly welcomed by the market.

Youth, a film by director Feng Xiaogang, based on a 1970s' military art troupe, was initially expected to attract only a small circle of people aged around 60, who are not seen as major contributors to box-office revenue. But it earned 1.4 billion yuan.

The report says: "Many films of a specific artistic style are often recognized by filmgoers, as both filmmakers' creativity and people's choices are now very diverse."

This, the report says, is because after years of pouring money into only one type of film, different genres have now found a way to prosper together.

"Such diversity was unimaginable before," says Yin Hong, a media professor from Tsinghua University, who's also one of the main authors of the report.

"We also now have a film genre structure, which is different from Hollywood."